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WO2009136403A2 - Method and system for displaying content on a communication device - Google Patents

Method and system for displaying content on a communication device Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2009136403A2
WO2009136403A2 PCT/IN2008/000246 IN2008000246W WO2009136403A2 WO 2009136403 A2 WO2009136403 A2 WO 2009136403A2 IN 2008000246 W IN2008000246 W IN 2008000246W WO 2009136403 A2 WO2009136403 A2 WO 2009136403A2
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
communication device
image
content
request
displayable content
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/IN2008/000246
Other languages
French (fr)
Other versions
WO2009136403A3 (en
Inventor
Murthy Amit
Mohapatra Tanmay Kumar
Chaudhary Tarun
Ande Laxman Kumar
Ganipisetty Venkat
Original Assignee
Onmobile Global Limited
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Onmobile Global Limited filed Critical Onmobile Global Limited
Priority to PCT/IN2008/000246 priority Critical patent/WO2009136403A2/en
Publication of WO2009136403A2 publication Critical patent/WO2009136403A2/en
Publication of WO2009136403A3 publication Critical patent/WO2009136403A3/en

Links

Classifications

    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/2866Architectures; Arrangements
    • H04L67/30Profiles
    • H04L67/303Terminal profiles
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06FELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F16/00Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
    • G06F16/90Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
    • G06F16/95Retrieval from the web
    • G06F16/957Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
    • G06F16/9577Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/2866Architectures; Arrangements
    • H04L67/2895Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data provider application, e.g. reverse proxies
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/50Network services
    • H04L67/56Provisioning of proxy services
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/50Network services
    • H04L67/56Provisioning of proxy services
    • H04L67/565Conversion or adaptation of application format or content
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04LTRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/01Protocols
    • H04L67/02Protocols based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04WWIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
    • H04W4/00Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor

Definitions

  • TITLE METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISPLAYING CONTENT ON A
  • the present invention relates to a method for displaying content on a communication device. More particularly, the invention relates to a method for displaying non displayable content as images on a communication device.
  • Internet A computer network is an interconnection of a group of computers. Internet is publicly accessible several interconnected computer networks that transmit data using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). Internet has services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW). Common methods of internet access include dial-up, landline broadband, Wi-Fi, satellite, 3G technology mobile phones etc.
  • IP Internet Protocol
  • Communication network A network of communication links and nodes arranged so that messages may be passed from one part of the network to another using multiple links and nodes.
  • Communication network includes, but is not limited to, internet, intranets, Wide Area Networks (WANs), Local Area Networks (LANs), Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), global telex network and transducer links such as those using Modulator-Demodulators (modems).
  • WANs Wide Area Networks
  • LANs Local Area Networks
  • PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network
  • Gms Modulator-Demodulators
  • Communication device A portable device enabled to communicate with other devices for the transfer of signals. Examples of communication device include, but are not limited to, voice phone, cordless phone, mobile phone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), pager, notebook PC, ultra-mobile PC.
  • PDA Personal Digital Assistant
  • Web page It is a formatted text file usually written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) codes. A web page may also contain graphics and may play sound, animation, and video clips.
  • Website It is a collection of web pages, images, videos or other information that is hosted on one or several web server(s), usually accessible via communication network.
  • Browser It is a software application used to display and interact with text, images, videos, music and other information typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. Browsers communicate with web servers primarily using HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) to fetch web pages. Popular browsers include Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera.
  • HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol
  • URL stands for Universal Resource Locator.
  • URL is a string of characters used to identify or name a resource. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network (typically the World Wide Web) using specific protocols (e.g. TCP/IP).
  • URL also provides means of acting upon a representation of the resource by describing its network "location". For example, the URL http://www.onmobile.com/ identifies a resource (OnMobile's home page) and implies that a representation of that resource (such as the home page's current HTML code, as encoded characters) is obtainable via HTTP from a network host named www.onmobile.com.
  • URLs are typed into a browser to access web pages. Also, URLs may be embedded within the web pages themselves to provide the hypertext links to other such web pages.
  • Text Wrapping It is a text formatting term. Text wrapping is associated with spatial relationship between blocks of text and graphics or between two blocks of text. It confines text to the viewable window which allows text to be edited or read from top to bottom without any left-to-right scrolling.
  • An example of text wrapping is shortening the lines of text when a graphic image is encountered. Another example is changing the length of lines by changing the column margins or by inserting hard carriage returns to shorten the lines.
  • text wrapping is not desired under certain circumstances such as within a personal name or within a compound word.
  • Non displayable content Part of a web page that needs to be displayed as image on a communication device due to any reason.
  • the reason may be, for example, inability of a communication device and/or its associated browser(s) to display text of a web page in a particular language (e.g. Hindi, Urdu etc).
  • a web page may have English text in a font that is not supported by the communication device.
  • the communication device may not be able to display such text.
  • one or more lines of text of the web page may exceed, say, thrice the screen width of the communication device. As a result, browsing such text may not be user friendly in the existing format.
  • Some of such websites use translation software that translates text on web pages prepared in one language, such as English, into text expressed in a user's native language such as French, or vice versa.
  • Some other websites provide multiple websites within a website. For example, an organization's home page may be written and designed in English, but it may have hyperlinks to select alternate languages such as German, Chinese, Vietnamese and French.
  • the font files reside in the communication device.
  • Operating system of a computer usually incorporates a font rendering system (e.g. TrueType in Microsoft Windows) to display texts in a particular language such as Hindi characters.
  • the browser makes use of the font rendering system in the operating system to generate a bitmap of the text information to display on screen.
  • United States Publication No. 20030115552 titled “Method and system for automatic creation of multilingual immutable image files” discloses a method in a data processing system that allows users to view screen objects of a user interface in different languages. To accomplish this, the system automatically generates a number of immutable image files, each containing text in different languages. These files are then made available to users so that they may select a preferred language in which to view the screen objects of the user interface.
  • Internet-based font server discloses an Internet-based font server to provide an internet browser with representations of text elements in one of a plurality of languages for browsing a web page in that language over the internet. Each character of the web page is converted to an image of the text and is stored at a unique URL. A parser program identifies text codes in the web page and replaces the text codes with corresponding URL addresses. The internet browser then displays the images of the text in the web page.
  • a web page may have hundreds, even thousands, of characters. As such, hundreds (or thousands) of URLs must load correctly on the browser for legible text display. This might take considerable amount of time. Further, the text displayed on a browser has a background as well as border. Thus, taking care of background and border for each of the hundreds (or thousands) of such images corresponding to each character is troublesome.
  • a method for displaying non displayable content on a communication device comprises receiving a first request for displaying the non displayable content from the communication device. Further, the method comprises sending at least one image URL to the communication device in response to the first request. Furthermore, the method comprises receiving a second request for at least one image from the communication device, the second request comprising the communication device ID and the at least one image URL. The method also comprises obtaining at least one image at real-time, the at least one image being based on the at least one image URL and the communication device ID. Further, the method comprises sending the at least one image for display on the communication device.
  • a method for generating an image at real-time based on non displayable content comprises dividing the non displayable content into at least one section and creating at least one image section corresponding to the at least one section by a dummy run. The method further comprises identifying dimensions of the at least one image section and creating an image canvas based on the dimensions of the image sections. Furthermore, the method comprises creating an image on the image canvas, wherein the image comprises the non displayable content.
  • a system for generating an image at real-time to be displayed on a communication device comprising: The non displayable content is associated with content attributes and the communication device is associated with a communication device ID. Also, the communication device ID is associated with communication device information. The image is generated based on non displayable content.
  • the system comprises an attribute encoder to encode content attribute into content ID.
  • the system further comprises an image server, the image server generating an image based on the content ID and the communication device information.
  • the system comprises a communication device information database to store communication device IDs and associated communication device information, and a content attribute database to store content IDs and corresponding content attributes.
  • FIG. 1 is a schematic depicting an exemplary communication environment in accordance with an embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 2 is a schematic illustrating a method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention
  • FIG. 3 is a schematic illustrating non displayable content display system according to an embodiment
  • FIG. 4 is a detailed flow diagram illustrating a method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
  • FIG. 5A is a detailed flow diagram illustrating a method of generating an image based on non displayable content to be displayed on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
  • FIG. 5B is a schematic illustrating a method of generating an image based on non displayable content to be displayed on a communication device in accordance with the embodiment of FIG. 5A.
  • FIG. 6 is a schematic illustrating an image generated for ND content 1 as discussed in conjunction with FIG. 5A - B.
  • FIG. 1 illustrates a communication environment according to an embodiment of the invention.
  • the communication environment comprises at least one communication device 102, a communication network 104 and a Non Displayable Content Display System (NDCDS) 106.
  • Communication device 102 may be carried by a user of communication network 104.
  • communication network 104 may support multiple communication devices 102.
  • the connection between communication device 102 and communication network 104 is provided by a Communication Service Provider (CSP).
  • CSP Communication Service Provider
  • FIG. 2 illustrates a method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
  • NDCDS 106 receives a request from communication device 102 for displaying non displayable content on communication device 102.
  • the request comprises content attributes for the non displayable content to be displayed and communication device ID.
  • the non displayable content displayed on a communication device may comprise text and icons. Further, the non displayable content is generally associated with content attribute. For example, texts included in the non displayable content, may have certain content attributes.
  • the content attribute includes, but isn't limited to message, language, font attributes (font type, font style, font size, font color, underline style, effects etc), background, border, transparency, character spacing (scale, spacing, position) etc.
  • the non displayable content may not be uniformly distributed over the web page.
  • the non displayable content of the entire web page may be divided into one or more parts depending upon factors such as location of the non displayable content on the web page etc. Further, each such part has content attribute associated with it.
  • non displayable content on a particular web page may be divided into three parts. As such, there are three content attributes corresponding to three parts of the non displayable content.
  • Communication device ID includes information such as manufacturer identity and model number of the communication device 102.
  • A43N may be communication device ID for communication device 102 that has model number “43N", and is manufactured by company "A”.
  • Each communication device ID has communication device information associated with it.
  • Communication device information comprises information such as screen size, supported image format etc. of communication device 102.
  • "6.2 4.8 GIF” may be communication device information associated with a communication device, wherein the communication device has a screen size of 6.2 cm X 4.8 cm and can display only images with .GIF format.
  • NDCDS 106 obtains at least one image based on the request.
  • NDCDS 106 may check whether an image corresponding to a particular content attribute and communication device ID has already been generated earlier by NDCDS 106. In case there exists such an image, the generated image earlier is carried on to step 206. Otherwise, NDCDS 106 may generate at least one image at real-time based on the content attributes and the communication device ID. While generating each image, NDCDS 106 takes care of text wrapping based on communication device information. Thereafter, the generated image is carried on to step 206. The steps of receiving a request and obtaining at least one image based on the request are discussed in further detail in conjunction with FIG. 3 and FIG. 4.
  • NDCDS 106 sends the image to communication device 102 via communication network 104.
  • Communication device 102 receives the image and the image is displayed on the screen of communication device 102.
  • FIG. 3 illustrates NDCDS 106 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
  • NDCDS 106 comprises an application 302, an attribute encoder 304, a Content Attributes (CA) database 306, a Communication Device Information (CDI) database 307, an image server 308, a cache 310 and an admin module 312.
  • CA Content Attributes
  • CDI Communication Device Information
  • Application 302 interacts with communication device 102 (via communication network 104), attribute encoder 304 and CA database 306. Application 302 passes on content attributes of the non displayable content to attribute encoder 304. Further, application 302 fetches content IDs corresponding to content attributes from attribute encoder 304.
  • Attribute encoder 304 encodes content attributes of the non displayable content into content ID.
  • a content ID is a shorter representation of the non displayable content plus the content attributes associated with the non displayable content. Further, attribute encoder 304 passes on the content IDs to CA database 306.
  • CA database 306 stores content IDs and content attributes corresponding to the content IDs.
  • CA database 306 may be accessed by application 302, attribute encoder 304, image server 308 and admin module 312.
  • CDI database 307 stores communication device IDs and communication device information corresponding to the communication device IDs. Further, CDI database 307 may be accessed by image server 308 and admin module 312.
  • Image server 308 obtains images based on the request from communication network 104.
  • Image server 308 is connected to communication network 104, CA database 306, CDI database 307 and cache 310.
  • image server 308 may generate images at real time based on request received from communication network 104. Further details regarding such generation of images is discussed in conjunction with FIG. 4, FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B.
  • image server 308 receives images from cache 310 corresponding to the communication device information and the content IDs. In both the embodiments, image server 308 sends the images to communication device 102 via communication network 104.
  • Cache 310 stores images generated by image server 308 and corresponding content IDs and communication device information.
  • cache 310 may store image "0X4537.gif and corresponding content ID "0X4537” and communication device information "6.2 4.8 GIF”.
  • Admin module 312 has access to CA database 306 and CDI database 307. Admin module 312 may add, delete and update the data in CA database 306 and CDI database 307. For example, a new model of a communication device may be launched. As such, communication device information such as model number, screen size, supported image format etc. may be added in CDI database 307 by admin module 312.
  • FIG. 4 is a detailed flow diagram illustrating method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
  • application 302 receives a first request for displaying non displayable content from communication device 102 via communication network 104. From the first request, application 302 detects content attributes of the non displayable content to be displayed and sends the same to attribute encoder 304.
  • attribute encoder 304 encodes the content attributes into content ID. For example, content ID for content attributes of "string “ ma y De “21 F2R723kd”, while content ID for content attributes of "Jack and Jill went up the hill” may be "Rt34a”. Attribute encoder 304, thereafter, sends each content ID to application 304. At step 406, attribute encoder 304 stores the content IDs in database 306.
  • the browser in order to render the web page, sends a request to image server 308.
  • image server 308 receives a second request from the browser for the images corresponding to the image URLs.
  • the second request comprises one communication device ID and at least one image URL.
  • image server 308 obtains an image corresponding to each of the Image URLs.
  • Image server 308 acquires communication device information from CDI database 307 based on communication device ID.
  • image server 308 checks with cache 310 whether an image corresponding to a particular content ID and the communication device information is present in cache 310.
  • the content ID corresponding to the image URL is "0X4537".
  • image server 308 acquires communication device information "6.2 4.8 GIF" from CDI database 307.
  • image server 308 checks with cache 310 whether an image corresponding to the content ID "0X4537" and the communication device information "6.2 4.8 GIF" is present in cache 310. In case there exists such an image in cache 310, image server 308 selects the image for further action at step 416. Otherwise, image server 308 acquires content attributes from CA database 306 based on the content ID "0X4537".
  • Image server 308 thereafter, generates an image at real time for each content ID associated with the communication device ID. Each image thus generated comprises the part of non displayable content as specified by content attributes. Further details regarding generating an image are discussed in detail in conjunction with FIG. 5A and FIG 5B. Thereafter, image server 308 selects the generated image for further action at step 416. At step 416, image server 308 sends the selected images to the browser for display. The images are displayed on communication device 102.
  • FIG. 5A is a detailed flow diagram illustrating a method of generating an image from non displayable content to be displayed on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
  • FIG. 5B is a schematic depicting steps of FIG.5A. The steps of FIG. 5A are discussed in conjunction with FIG. 5B.
  • image server 308 divides the non displayable content into at least one section. Each such section may be text-only, image-only or text-plus- image etc. For example, the location of non displayable content in webpage 512 may be scattered. As such, the non displayable content may be divided into parts called ND (non displayable) content 1 , ND content 2 and ND content 3. Further, each such part may be divided by image server 308 into one or more sections based on factors like presence of icons, screen dimensions etc. For example, image server 308 may divide ND content 1 into three sections (section 1 , 2 and 3).
  • image server 308 creates image sections corresponding to each section of the part of non displayable content.
  • Each such image section has a fixed width, in an embodiment, the fixed width may be equal to the width of communication device on which the non displayable content is to be displayed.
  • Image server 308 performs a dummy run of each section.
  • each image section is created. For example, in FIG. 5B, three image sections are created corresponding to three sections of ND content 1. For creating image section 2, Icon 1 is first placed. Thereafter, text is written over image section 2. On encountering the border of image section 2, the text is wrapped to next line. Thus, text wrapping is performed.
  • image server 308 identifies the dimensions of each image section. During the dummy run, the width of the image section may be fixed. Hence, after the dummy run, the length of each image section is identified.
  • image server 308 based on the dimensions of each image section, image server 308 creates an image canvas. For example, image server 308 creates an image canvas 516 based on the dimensions of image sections 1 , 2 and 3.
  • image server 308 creates the image for the part of the non displayable content by performing an actual run with the identified dimensions of each image section. For example, in FIG. 5B, image 518 is created for ND content 1. Steps 502, 504, 506, 508 and 510 are repeated for each part of the non displayable content (e.g. ND content 1 , 2 and 3 of webpage 512) of the webpage.
  • FIG. 6 is a schematic depicting an image generated for ND content 1 as discussed in conjunction with FIG. 5A - B.

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  • Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Databases & Information Systems (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Data Mining & Analysis (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
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  • Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)

Abstract

A method and a system for displaying non displayable content on a communication device connected to a communication network is disclosed. A communication device sends a request to the system for displaying the non displayable content. The system generates images at real-time based on the non displayable content and attributes of the communication device. The system, while generating such images, also performs text wrapping based on the attributes of the communication device. The system then sends the images to the communication device for display.

Description

TITLE: METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISPLAYING CONTENT ON A
COMMUNICATION DEVICE
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for displaying content on a communication device. More particularly, the invention relates to a method for displaying non displayable content as images on a communication device.
DEFINITIONS
Internet: A computer network is an interconnection of a group of computers. Internet is publicly accessible several interconnected computer networks that transmit data using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). Internet has services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW). Common methods of internet access include dial-up, landline broadband, Wi-Fi, satellite, 3G technology mobile phones etc.
Communication network: A network of communication links and nodes arranged so that messages may be passed from one part of the network to another using multiple links and nodes. Communication network includes, but is not limited to, internet, intranets, Wide Area Networks (WANs), Local Area Networks (LANs), Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), global telex network and transducer links such as those using Modulator-Demodulators (modems).
User: A person who is using communication network for communication. Communication device: A portable device enabled to communicate with other devices for the transfer of signals. Examples of communication device include, but are not limited to, voice phone, cordless phone, mobile phone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), pager, notebook PC, ultra-mobile PC.
Web page: It is a formatted text file usually written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) codes. A web page may also contain graphics and may play sound, animation, and video clips. Website: It is a collection of web pages, images, videos or other information that is hosted on one or several web server(s), usually accessible via communication network.
Browser: It is a software application used to display and interact with text, images, videos, music and other information typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. Browsers communicate with web servers primarily using HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) to fetch web pages. Popular browsers include Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera.
URL: URL stands for Universal Resource Locator. URL is a string of characters used to identify or name a resource. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network (typically the World Wide Web) using specific protocols (e.g. TCP/IP). URL also provides means of acting upon a representation of the resource by describing its network "location". For example, the URL http://www.onmobile.com/ identifies a resource (OnMobile's home page) and implies that a representation of that resource (such as the home page's current HTML code, as encoded characters) is obtainable via HTTP from a network host named www.onmobile.com. URLs are typed into a browser to access web pages. Also, URLs may be embedded within the web pages themselves to provide the hypertext links to other such web pages.
Text Wrapping: It is a text formatting term. Text wrapping is associated with spatial relationship between blocks of text and graphics or between two blocks of text. It confines text to the viewable window which allows text to be edited or read from top to bottom without any left-to-right scrolling. An example of text wrapping is shortening the lines of text when a graphic image is encountered. Another example is changing the length of lines by changing the column margins or by inserting hard carriage returns to shorten the lines. However, text wrapping is not desired under certain circumstances such as within a personal name or within a compound word. Non displayable content: Part of a web page that needs to be displayed as image on a communication device due to any reason. The reason may be, for example, inability of a communication device and/or its associated browser(s) to display text of a web page in a particular language (e.g. Hindi, Urdu etc). Another example may be, a web page may have English text in a font that is not supported by the communication device. As a result, the communication device may not be able to display such text. Yet another example may be, one or more lines of text of the web page may exceed, say, thrice the screen width of the communication device. As a result, browsing such text may not be user friendly in the existing format.
BACKGROUND
Internet has become a popular medium for interaction, exchange of information and electronic commerce. As popularity of internet grew, a large number of individuals, educational institutions, businesses and organizations became web users and web site owners. As such, millions of new web pages have been developed in the past several years.
Many of the web pages are written only in English. However, visitors of a website may be from various parts of the world and may speak different languages. For example, internet users from Russia, Japan, the Middle East or other regions may be less comfortable reading English text or can't read and interpret English at all. This results in websites written only in English failing to communicate the information it contains to non-English speaking users.
Several strategies are used to display such non displayable content on the websites. Some of such websites use translation software that translates text on web pages prepared in one language, such as English, into text expressed in a user's native language such as French, or vice versa. Some other websites provide multiple websites within a website. For example, an organization's home page may be written and designed in English, but it may have hyperlinks to select alternate languages such as German, Chinese, Hindi and French. Conventionally, to display texts in a particular language, the font files reside in the communication device. Operating system of a computer usually incorporates a font rendering system (e.g. TrueType in Microsoft Windows) to display texts in a particular language such as Hindi characters. The browser makes use of the font rendering system in the operating system to generate a bitmap of the text information to display on screen.
Advancement in telecommunication technologies propelled new generation of devices that could use internet for communicating multimedia information, for example, WAP based mobile devices, set top boxes etc. Such devices typically have limited computing power and memory just sufficient to run a small version of a standard browser. Thus, only a basic font rendering system may be implemented to support a few style of fonts. The limitations become more pronounced for display of ideographic characters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc) and conjunct words (Hindi, Bengali etc). As such, communication devices weren't able to display the part of web pages that comprised fonts of different languages. Several methods were adopted to display such non displayable content.
United States Publication No. 20030115552, titled "Method and system for automatic creation of multilingual immutable image files" discloses a method in a data processing system that allows users to view screen objects of a user interface in different languages. To accomplish this, the system automatically generates a number of immutable image files, each containing text in different languages. These files are then made available to users so that they may select a preferred language in which to view the screen objects of the user interface.
Another publication, United States Publication No. 20020010725, titled "Internet-based font server" discloses an Internet-based font server to provide an internet browser with representations of text elements in one of a plurality of languages for browsing a web page in that language over the internet. Each character of the web page is converted to an image of the text and is stored at a unique URL. A parser program identifies text codes in the web page and replaces the text codes with corresponding URL addresses. The internet browser then displays the images of the text in the web page.
Replacing the text codes in a web page with URLs for each character has several disadvantages. A web page may have hundreds, even thousands, of characters. As such, hundreds (or thousands) of URLs must load correctly on the browser for legible text display. This might take considerable amount of time. Further, the text displayed on a browser has a background as well as border. Thus, taking care of background and border for each of the hundreds (or thousands) of such images corresponding to each character is troublesome.
Conventional systems for displaying non displayable content of web pages on browsers have become inadequate with the increased access of internet over diverse communication devices. Configuration of different communication devices may vary from each other. For example, screen dimensions of two mobile phones may be different. Further, device capabilities are also not same for all communication devices. For example, a mobile phone may be able to display only .gif images while another mobile phone may be able to display only .jpeg and .png images. Conventional systems fail to offer flexible solutions according to different device configurations and capabilities. Further, conventional systems for displaying non displayable content by converting text to images do no perform text wrapping based on communication device configuration.
As such, there is a need for a method and a system for displaying non displayable content on a communication device that offers flexibility in display according to communication device configuration.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to an embodiment, a method for displaying non displayable content on a communication device is disclosed. The communication device is associated with a communication device ID. The method comprises receiving a first request for displaying the non displayable content from the communication device. Further, the method comprises sending at least one image URL to the communication device in response to the first request. Furthermore, the method comprises receiving a second request for at least one image from the communication device, the second request comprising the communication device ID and the at least one image URL. The method also comprises obtaining at least one image at real-time, the at least one image being based on the at least one image URL and the communication device ID. Further, the method comprises sending the at least one image for display on the communication device.
According to another embodiment, a method for generating an image at real-time based on non displayable content is disclosed. The image is to be displayed on a communication device. The method comprises dividing the non displayable content into at least one section and creating at least one image section corresponding to the at least one section by a dummy run. The method further comprises identifying dimensions of the at least one image section and creating an image canvas based on the dimensions of the image sections. Furthermore, the method comprises creating an image on the image canvas, wherein the image comprises the non displayable content.
According to yet another embodiment, a system for generating an image at real-time to be displayed on a communication device is disclosed. The non displayable content is associated with content attributes and the communication device is associated with a communication device ID. Also, the communication device ID is associated with communication device information. The image is generated based on non displayable content. The system comprises an attribute encoder to encode content attribute into content ID. The system further comprises an image server, the image server generating an image based on the content ID and the communication device information. Further, the system comprises a communication device information database to store communication device IDs and associated communication device information, and a content attribute database to store content IDs and corresponding content attributes. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a schematic depicting an exemplary communication environment in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic illustrating a method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 3 is a schematic illustrating non displayable content display system according to an embodiment;
FIG. 4 is a detailed flow diagram illustrating a method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 5A is a detailed flow diagram illustrating a method of generating an image based on non displayable content to be displayed on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 5B is a schematic illustrating a method of generating an image based on non displayable content to be displayed on a communication device in accordance with the embodiment of FIG. 5A.
FIG. 6 is a schematic illustrating an image generated for ND content 1 as discussed in conjunction with FIG. 5A - B.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, it will be apparent that the invention may be practiced without these specific details. Various aspects and features of example embodiments of the invention are described in more detail hereinafter.
A method and a system for displaying non displayable content on a communication device is disclosed. According to an embodiment, the system obtains one or more images at real-time based on the non displayable content to be displayed on a communication device. Such one or more images are based on the communication device attributes. FIG. 1 illustrates a communication environment according to an embodiment of the invention. The communication environment comprises at least one communication device 102, a communication network 104 and a Non Displayable Content Display System (NDCDS) 106. Communication device 102 may be carried by a user of communication network 104. Further, communication network 104 may support multiple communication devices 102. The connection between communication device 102 and communication network 104 is provided by a Communication Service Provider (CSP).
FIG. 2 illustrates a method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. At step 202, NDCDS 106 receives a request from communication device 102 for displaying non displayable content on communication device 102. The request comprises content attributes for the non displayable content to be displayed and communication device ID.
The non displayable content displayed on a communication device may comprise text and icons. Further, the non displayable content is generally associated with content attribute. For example, texts included in the non displayable content, may have certain content attributes. The content attribute includes, but isn't limited to message, language, font attributes (font type, font style, font size, font color, underline style, effects etc), background, border, transparency, character spacing (scale, spacing, position) etc. For example, the text "string " nas the following content attributes: message = String; language = English; font type = Times New Roman; font style = Regular; font size = 12; font color = black; underline style = none; effects = Striketh rough; background = default; border = none; transparency = 0%; character spacing: scale = 100%, spacing = Expanded by 1 pt, position = Lowered by 3 pt.
The non displayable content may not be uniformly distributed over the web page. As a result, the non displayable content of the entire web page may be divided into one or more parts depending upon factors such as location of the non displayable content on the web page etc. Further, each such part has content attribute associated with it. For example, non displayable content on a particular web page may be divided into three parts. As such, there are three content attributes corresponding to three parts of the non displayable content.
Communication device ID includes information such as manufacturer identity and model number of the communication device 102. For example, "A43N" may be communication device ID for communication device 102 that has model number "43N", and is manufactured by company "A". Each communication device ID has communication device information associated with it. Communication device information comprises information such as screen size, supported image format etc. of communication device 102. For example, "6.2 4.8 GIF" may be communication device information associated with a communication device, wherein the communication device has a screen size of 6.2 cm X 4.8 cm and can display only images with .GIF format.
At step 204, NDCDS 106 obtains at least one image based on the request. According to an embodiment, NDCDS 106 may check whether an image corresponding to a particular content attribute and communication device ID has already been generated earlier by NDCDS 106. In case there exists such an image, the generated image earlier is carried on to step 206. Otherwise, NDCDS 106 may generate at least one image at real-time based on the content attributes and the communication device ID. While generating each image, NDCDS 106 takes care of text wrapping based on communication device information. Thereafter, the generated image is carried on to step 206. The steps of receiving a request and obtaining at least one image based on the request are discussed in further detail in conjunction with FIG. 3 and FIG. 4.
At step 206, NDCDS 106 sends the image to communication device 102 via communication network 104. Communication device 102 receives the image and the image is displayed on the screen of communication device 102.
FIG. 3 illustrates NDCDS 106 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. NDCDS 106 comprises an application 302, an attribute encoder 304, a Content Attributes (CA) database 306, a Communication Device Information (CDI) database 307, an image server 308, a cache 310 and an admin module 312.
Application 302 interacts with communication device 102 (via communication network 104), attribute encoder 304 and CA database 306. Application 302 passes on content attributes of the non displayable content to attribute encoder 304. Further, application 302 fetches content IDs corresponding to content attributes from attribute encoder 304.
Attribute encoder 304 encodes content attributes of the non displayable content into content ID. A content ID is a shorter representation of the non displayable content plus the content attributes associated with the non displayable content. Further, attribute encoder 304 passes on the content IDs to CA database 306.
CA database 306 stores content IDs and content attributes corresponding to the content IDs. CA database 306 may be accessed by application 302, attribute encoder 304, image server 308 and admin module 312.
CDI database 307 stores communication device IDs and communication device information corresponding to the communication device IDs. Further, CDI database 307 may be accessed by image server 308 and admin module 312.
Image server 308 obtains images based on the request from communication network 104. Image server 308 is connected to communication network 104, CA database 306, CDI database 307 and cache 310. According to one embodiment, image server 308 may generate images at real time based on request received from communication network 104. Further details regarding such generation of images is discussed in conjunction with FIG. 4, FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B. According to another embodiment, image server 308 receives images from cache 310 corresponding to the communication device information and the content IDs. In both the embodiments, image server 308 sends the images to communication device 102 via communication network 104.
Cache 310 stores images generated by image server 308 and corresponding content IDs and communication device information. For example, cache 310 may store image "0X4537.gif and corresponding content ID "0X4537" and communication device information "6.2 4.8 GIF".
Admin module 312 has access to CA database 306 and CDI database 307. Admin module 312 may add, delete and update the data in CA database 306 and CDI database 307. For example, a new model of a communication device may be launched. As such, communication device information such as model number, screen size, supported image format etc. may be added in CDI database 307 by admin module 312.
FIG. 4 is a detailed flow diagram illustrating method of displaying non displayable content on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. At step 402, application 302 receives a first request for displaying non displayable content from communication device 102 via communication network 104. From the first request, application 302 detects content attributes of the non displayable content to be displayed and sends the same to attribute encoder 304.
At step 404, attribute encoder 304 encodes the content attributes into content ID. For example, content ID for content attributes of "string " may De "21 F2R723kd", while content ID for content attributes of "Jack and Jill went up the hill" may be "Rt34a". Attribute encoder 304, thereafter, sends each content ID to application 304. At step 406, attribute encoder 304 stores the content IDs in database 306.
At step 408, application 302 generates an image URL corresponding to each content ID. For example, corresponding to content ID "0X4537", application 302 may generate an image URL - http://www.abc.com/runtime?id=0X4537. At step 410, application 302 sends the image URLs to browser. For example, application 302 sends image URL - http://www.abc.com/runtime?id=0X4537 to the browser. The browser, in order to render the web page, sends a request to image server 308.
At step 412, image server 308 receives a second request from the browser for the images corresponding to the image URLs. The second request comprises one communication device ID and at least one image URL.
At step 414, image server 308 obtains an image corresponding to each of the Image URLs. Image server 308 acquires communication device information from CDI database 307 based on communication device ID. Thereafter, image server 308 checks with cache 310 whether an image corresponding to a particular content ID and the communication device information is present in cache 310. For example, image server 308 may receive a second request from the browser such that the second request comprises communication device ID "A43N" and image URL "http://www.abc.com/runtime?id=0X4537". The content ID corresponding to the image URL is "0X4537". Thereafter, based on the communication device ID, image server 308 acquires communication device information "6.2 4.8 GIF" from CDI database 307. Further, image server 308 checks with cache 310 whether an image corresponding to the content ID "0X4537" and the communication device information "6.2 4.8 GIF" is present in cache 310. In case there exists such an image in cache 310, image server 308 selects the image for further action at step 416. Otherwise, image server 308 acquires content attributes from CA database 306 based on the content ID "0X4537".
Image server 308, thereafter, generates an image at real time for each content ID associated with the communication device ID. Each image thus generated comprises the part of non displayable content as specified by content attributes. Further details regarding generating an image are discussed in detail in conjunction with FIG. 5A and FIG 5B. Thereafter, image server 308 selects the generated image for further action at step 416. At step 416, image server 308 sends the selected images to the browser for display. The images are displayed on communication device 102.
FIG. 5A is a detailed flow diagram illustrating a method of generating an image from non displayable content to be displayed on a communication device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. FIG. 5B is a schematic depicting steps of FIG.5A. The steps of FIG. 5A are discussed in conjunction with FIG. 5B. At step 502, image server 308 divides the non displayable content into at least one section. Each such section may be text-only, image-only or text-plus- image etc. For example, the location of non displayable content in webpage 512 may be scattered. As such, the non displayable content may be divided into parts called ND (non displayable) content 1 , ND content 2 and ND content 3. Further, each such part may be divided by image server 308 into one or more sections based on factors like presence of icons, screen dimensions etc. For example, image server 308 may divide ND content 1 into three sections (section 1 , 2 and 3).
At step 504, image server 308 creates image sections corresponding to each section of the part of non displayable content. Each such image section has a fixed width, in an embodiment, the fixed width may be equal to the width of communication device on which the non displayable content is to be displayed. Image server 308 performs a dummy run of each section. Thus, each image section is created. For example, in FIG. 5B, three image sections are created corresponding to three sections of ND content 1. For creating image section 2, Icon 1 is first placed. Thereafter, text is written over image section 2. On encountering the border of image section 2, the text is wrapped to next line. Thus, text wrapping is performed.
At step 506, image server 308 identifies the dimensions of each image section. During the dummy run, the width of the image section may be fixed. Hence, after the dummy run, the length of each image section is identified. At step 508, based on the dimensions of each image section, image server 308 creates an image canvas. For example, image server 308 creates an image canvas 516 based on the dimensions of image sections 1 , 2 and 3. At step 510, image server 308 creates the image for the part of the non displayable content by performing an actual run with the identified dimensions of each image section. For example, in FIG. 5B, image 518 is created for ND content 1. Steps 502, 504, 506, 508 and 510 are repeated for each part of the non displayable content (e.g. ND content 1 , 2 and 3 of webpage 512) of the webpage.
FIG. 6 is a schematic depicting an image generated for ND content 1 as discussed in conjunction with FIG. 5A - B.
While example embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described, it will be clear that the invention is not limited to these embodiments only. Numerous modifications, changes, variations, substitutions and equivalents will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as described in the claims.

Claims

CLAI MS:
1. A method for displaying non displayable content on a communication device, the communication device being connected to a communication network, the method comprising: a. receiving a request for displaying the non displayable content from the communication device, wherein the request comprises communication device ID; b. generating at least one image at real-time based on the request, the at > least one image comprising the non displayable content; and c. sending the at least one image for display on the communication device.
2. A method for displaying at least one image on a communication device, the communication device being connected to a communication network, the method comprising: a. receiving a request for an image, wherein the request comprises communication device ID; b. generating the at least one image at real-time based on the request; and c. sending the at least one image for display on the communication device.
3. A method for displaying non displayable content on a communication device, the communication device being associated with communication device ID, the communication device being connected to a communication network, the method comprising: a. receiving a first request for displaying the non displayable content from the communication device; b. sending at least one image URL to the communication device in response to the first request; c. receiving a second request for at least one image from the communication device, the second request comprising the communication device ID and the at least one image URL; d. obtaining at least one image at real-time, the at least one image being based on the at least one image URL and the communication device ID; and e. sending the at least one image for display on the communication device.
4. A method for generating an image at real-time based on non displayable content, the image to be displayed on a communication device, the communication device being associated with communication device information, the method comprising: a. dividing the non displayable content into at least one section; b. creating at least one image section corresponding to the at least one section by a dummy run, the image section being created based on the communication device information; c. identifying dimensions of the at least one image section; d. creating an image canvas based on the dimensions of the image sections; and e. creating an image on the image canvas, wherein the image comprises the non displayable content.
5. A system for generating an image at real-time to be displayed on a communication device, the image being generated based on non displayable content, the non displayable content being associated with content attributes, the communication device being associated with a communication device ID, the communication device ID being associated with communication device information, the system comprising: a. an attribute encoder to encode content attribute into content ID; b. an image server, the image server generating an image based on the content ID and the communication device information; c. a communication device information database to store communication device IDs and associated communication device information; and d. a content attribute database to store content IDs and corresponding content attributes.
PCT/IN2008/000246 2008-04-15 2008-04-15 Method and system for displaying content on a communication device WO2009136403A2 (en)

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